Hark! A Vagrant is a web comic published by Beaton about twice a week. It mainly consists of comics that find humor in historical or literary figures. There are also a number of comics where Beaton interacts with her younger self, and ones that were drawn by Beaton using MS Paint during her breaks at work.

Beaton's self-published History Comics won the 2009 Doug Wright Award for Best Emerging Talent. Hark! A Vagrant was nominated for a Harvey Award for Best Online Comics Work in 2010, and a Joe Shuster Award in 2009 and 2010 . Her work has been profiled in Wired, Macleans, and Comic Book Resources. She attended the PEN World Voices Festival in New York, from April 27 to May 3, 2009. "The Origin of Man", a comic strip by Beaton celebrating Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, was showcased by MySpace Dark Horse Presents in March 2009. In June 2009 she released a book titled Never Learn Anything From History. Beaton has also drawn two cartoons for The New Yorker.